Simon Fraser U. takes down National Sweater Day "flirting" video that offends students

Yesterday morning, Simon Fraser University took down a video that promoted campus wide “National Sweater Day,” all for the sake of political correctness.

It was a fun, goodnatured skit: A professor puts on a sweater and a student compliments her on it, leaving her giggling at the flirtatious experience.

The video has been used in previous years to encourage students to turn down the heat and put on a sweater to help conserve energy.

Unfortunately, this time around the message got into the hands of the professionally offended, and the video was taken down a few hours after it was sent out.

Luckily, a student managed to save a copy of the video before its removal.

Here it is below; I've added commentary to avoid a copyright claim, so skip to 2:03 for the skit.

So why was this video taken down?

Because the flirting in the video rubbed the campus’ feminist militia the wrong way.

Here’s the message the university sent out in response to complaints they received:

"This message is being sent on behalf of Joanne Curry, VP External Relations. A number of concerns have been received about the content of the National Sweater Day video distributed this morning by email. Thank you for your input and we apologize to anyone who was offended. After review, the video has been removed from our YouTube channel and will no longer be used."

The video was removed because it displayed the deeply offensive act of a man flirting with a woman for all to see. The horror! I guess the benign act of complimenting the opposite sex on the way they look in our brave new world nears sexual assault. On progressive campuses it may as well be equivalent to rape.

That wasn't all the perpetually offended found wrong with this 40-second skit.

Elise Chenier, a professor at SFU, published a responseto the video pointing out how heteronormative and "white" it was. Honestly, I don't think her complaint went far enough; I don't recall seeing any wheelchairs or seeing eye dogs in the sketch, either. Ableism, how very problematic.

The student who emailed me about these happenings wants to remain anonymous for obvious reasons. Speaking out against this kind of nonsense is enough to get persecuted on campus; just look at what happened to George Lawlor.

It’s my hope that after more students hear about how far the feminist militia have taken their crusade against perceived sexism, there will be some sort of push back, a push for a more reasonable, academic and free speech oriented culture on campus.

This sort of stupidity has occurred at the university before. To name one instance, there were threats of protests when anti-feminist Karen Straughan came to speak at the campus. The Communication Graduate Caucus and the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Student Union have also written an open letterregarding the SFU Advocacy for Men and Boys club. They stated in their letter that “SFU AMB’s insistence that we should allow this ‘activism’ to go unchallenged in the name of liberty and equity is perhaps the most intolerable of all.”

Like many universities, Simon Fraser is in the midst of a free speech crisis. In the case of National Sweater Day, it's even censoring left wing advocates for environmentalism. There is no harm in flirtation, especially when it is fully consensual, enjoyed by both parties and is for a good cause. (Or at least a cause that feels good but has no real world impact)

I hope students on campus speak out, share the video, and actually do participate in National Sweater Day.

I also hope they flirt to their hearts’ content, because -- along with learning -- that’s what you’re supposed to be doing in university, not sitting in a safe space all day while ruining everyone else's fun.

When the people in charge aren’t leadership material, this is what you get. Confusion and idiocy in the extreme. University students are acting like 2-year olds, and getting away with it. I hope I’m long gone before these brain dead students are in control.

That’s it.. I’m never visiting Canada… pity, seemed like a lovely country but way feminazis are their hordes of socially frustrated eunuchs are taking over, it’s not safe. One wrong comment could land me a 3-year trial (and rest assured, it’s gonna be more than one wrong comment as people in Panama, despite all our flaws and lunacies, have managed to GROW UP so speech is way more free… sorry.. triiiigeriiiiing).

Such a cute video! Put a smile on my face. The same smile I smile when I get a nice compliment from a man. These ‘offended’ are in need of some professional psychological help. I mean that in all seriousness. Such a freaked out attitude at every single bit of male attention is not healthy. Do you have to have permission to give a compliment too? Or are they just verboten altogether?
Lauren, you are looking very ‘lady Gadiva’ today! Cute toque.

I would venture a guess that NONE of these perpetually offended student activists are studying any kind of discipline that will contribute anything to improve our standard of living, feed us or build the infrastructure of our society. I’ll bet they’re ALL going for some sort of “Liberal Arts” degree (i.e. Social Justice, Women’s Studies, etc.). In other words, they intend to live off efforts and labor of working men and women their whole lives, and be drain on society in perpetuity. After all, they deserve it…. and we (my generation) owe them. Why? Because we spawned them, I suppose.

Whoever of the Elitists’ that it was that thought up the sabotage that “Political Correctness”, could bring upon a Society was ingenious, especially if that person was one of those Eugenicists in favor of De-population!
As this is a method whereby, progressively with new issues being brought up it incrementally starts cutting down on the little silent smiles and enjoyments of life and will if allowed to progress to it’s ultimate goal take away every gesture in life that was part of a life of little communications that when added up helped give meanings and understandings to the quality of life – both the positive and negative aspects of it, as the whole of life must involve both for the experience to be full!

So yes, eventually making everything in life forbidden definitely will cut down on the quality of a persons’ life – where at some point anyone who is living under the influence and by the laws of Political Correctness – ultimately has to come to the point of saying what is the point, deciding that since nothing is proper thought or worth doing – come to the conclusion that there is no point in living! In so far as i can see that must be the reason PC was invented and as such convince each person to give up on life and for the Eugenicist – suicide would probably be the only solution – Hence: The reason political Correctness was invented!

oh, one more thing, a couple of weeks ago, SFU Downtown Campus invited some Arabs to give a ‘lecture’ about “colonialism”… they were actually recruiting First Nations people into the Hamas terrorist organization… I plugged my nose and attended… it was DISGUSTING.

SFU is a bizarre place, it’s located on top of Burnaby Mountain… BBY Mountain is surrounded on three sides by suburban Vancouver, and on 1 side by an inlet. The bottom third of BBY Mountain is a fully built up residential area, the middle third is natural forest but also contains a tank-farm that has been there for many decades, and the top third is SFU, in a large clear-cut … Near the tank-farm, Kinder Morgan was doing a survey that required cutting 7 trees, old rotten ones, and the eco-activists freaked out… they deemed the 7 trees as sacred…. no mention of the SFU clear-cut above or the residential area clear-cut below.
As well, this past summer, there was a three day “fat-camp” at SFU.. they advertised “turn your fat into rage”.. and if that isn’t bizarre enough, they claimed that you don’t actually need to be fat to attend, you just have to feel like you are fat. They apologized that they could not get the administration to turn off the wifi and warned that anyone attending the fat-camp would be exposed to electromagnetic radiation… they also warned that fat-camp attendees would be subjected to florescent light for much of the 3 days, but they would arrange to make use of natural light also…. and if anyone is wondering, this is NOT satire, all this actually happened. I actually emailed them and said I would attend if the menu was attractive and requested a schedule of meal and snack breaks…. no one got back to me.

By apologizing, the stupid university staff are only strengthening the legitimacy of said complaint in the minds of the twisted sjw’s!
Worse, our institutions are an embarrassment! People don’t realize, but a LOT of immigrants are sending their kids “back home” for uni nowadays. We’re into the “information age”. A few years back, I encouraged various levels of government to “sell knowledge”. To double our universities and promote them in other countries, creating a “knowledge economy”, (and indirectly spreading democracy, as these students return home having experienced same). The politicians agreed, took up the charge. Only to have it ruined now by this stupid bloody nonsense.

And on an even more serious note, one shouldn’t brush this stuff off, because it’s these same kids that will one day be at the top of the Supreme Court of Canada. Chief (social) Justice McLaughlin has had a huge (negative) impact on the court, encouraging rulings like; truth is not a defense. And she doesn’t even understand how that ruling is a dagger in the heart of democracy. (Or she does, and thinks it’s a good thing!!)
By allowing this stuff to go on. To let the kids run the place, and turn our uni’s into asylums, rather than TEACHING our kids, the administration are in Breach of Trust. Time to start laying criminal charges against a few Deans!!

I guess chivalry really is dead. Not to sound dramatic but my God waking up each morning in Canada is becoming increasingly embarrassing. Now I know what the thorn in Paul’s side was…..leftists plain and simple. lol

I’m guessing it would be an act of feminazism (an actual feminist would not have a problem here), to feel negatively triggered by a female actress acting giggly.

I guess any type of stereotyping is censorable to the Irrationalists.

Other than that I have no idea what the problem is; my brain isn’t that fucked up.
I might have to consult with Sigmund Freud or another psychoanalyst for an explanation of the social hyper-sensitivity phobia going on here.